An immediate bestseller when it was first published in 1921 by the famous author of
Elizabeth and Her German Garden
and
The Enchanted April,
this brilliant dissection of a marriage gone terribly wrong is also a cautionary tale for anyone tempted to abandon their principles in the name of loyalty and love. Based on von Arnim's disastrous marriage to the 2nd Earl Russell, the brother of philosopher Bertrand Russell, this haunting tale of a woman gaslit by her despotic husband anticipates the plot of Daphne du Maurier's
Rebecca,
later an Academy Award-winning film by Alfred Hitchcock.